A New Artistic Landscape

Art may imitate life, but traditional art, at least, is not a
part of it. Traditional art objects, like any objects of any
time, are separated from the rest of the world by their
boundaries. A musical object, as in a Beethoven symphony, has
time boundaries of beginning and end, between which time passes
in a way that is separate from the way time passes in the rest
of the world. A visual object, as in a Rembrandt painting, may
represent some aspect of the natural world, but it is based on
an internal structure that functions within boundaries of
dimension and closure to keep it complete and apart from our
view of its real-life surroundings. In their content and in
their structures, traditional art objects may occasionally
reflect the quotidian life of their times. But they exist apart
from life.

A major paradigm shift has been taking place through the last
several decades in the mainstream of music and art. Art
processes, different from art objects, are defined as much by
the way they function as by the way they are heard or
seen. Their boundaries are permeable because they are linked to
the real world by their subject matter, or by interactive
controls, or by interactive reception, or by their ongoing
existence in a normal environment. By subject matter, I mean the
sounds and images of the world (as in Annea Lockwood's A
Sound Map of the Hudson River). By interactive controls, I
mean a performer's or the public's control of the functioning of
the process (as in Thomas Gerwin's Acoustic World
Atlas). By interactive reception, I mean that a process is
viewed in a rhythm determined by the public (as in David Tudor's
Rainforest, where the public wanders through a
space). By normal ongoing existence, I mean that a process can
become part of the rhythm of the world rather than remain an
object isolated from it (as in Max Neuhaus's Suspended Sound
Line). Music and art, in other words, are moving closer to
life.

To take the thought further, a new artistic landscape, based
on involvement, participation, and a new role for art, is
emerging. Technology, to be sure, is the enabler, but it is not
the goal. The goal is to articulate the new artistic landscape
in creative works of sound, image and process that involve
people and invite participation and interaction. Crossings is
going to help us understand that new landscape. And yes, we
might even hope to reach a point where our lives imitate
art.